Dai Stihó

First Officer Reynolds of the Subdural Memetic Containment Organization was not always known only by his title, but there isn't a single page of history that lists him as anything else. No first name, no middle name: it turns out that 'First Officer' was all anyone knew him by.

Not that there were many who claimed to know him, despite the part he played.

———

From: A. Reynolds
To: Director Charles Stanley
Date: March 19, 0012 AV
Subject: Time and tide

Charles, I think you know why you're getting this email now; you were probably waiting as soon as it hit the newsnets. I'd be willing to bet that one of the task forces — Kilo, with Captain Stanger, right? — raised the alarm, and you've quarantined the zone and set up a perimeter.

They made a good choice making you director.

I also know you're agonizing, wondering, wracking your brain and those of your senior staff trying to figure out what you can do and what you should do, given that there's, what, thirteen hundred people in the q-t zone? You're doing the numbers, trying to figure out the spread, the rate of virulence, the hope of recovery. Just like the drills, right?

Let me make it easy for you: you can't save them, Charles.

I know you're going to object — I know you, old friend — but I want to remind you of something you may have forgotten; you weren't serving at the time, though I'm sure it's crossed your desk once or twice since then.

Do you remember Day Fifteen, after the bastard died? The euphoria had finally died down, people were finally starting to realize what it meant to be in control of themselves again, what it meant to be able to have your own thoughts and feelings and wishes and impulses, and more than that, to be able to act on them, and 'lo and behold, what happened?

An idiot group of kids thought that it'd be great to see what else Vinter had in his files. He was dead, after all, so there wasn't any harm done, right? What's the worst that could happen, I'm sure they asked themselves... right before setting off the booby trap.

Let me guess: you just stood up, staring at the screen, and your secretary probably asked if you were okay. Yes, Charles, that was London. Check your files if you don't believe me — you have access to the full write-up, including all the agents, not just me.

Five hundred died, Charles. Five hundred — mostly children, teenagers — because a bunch of fucking kids couldn't keep their hands to themselves in digging through Vinter's stash. Fifteen days after we were all free again.

I thought it was over, honestly; I thought we had gotten them all in the last fifteen years. But we hadn't, or maybe it's just been enough time that the young ones don't remember what it was like anymore. But what this proves is that we need a group dedicated to stopping it — a group dedicated to fighting back, doing research, immunizing people, and responding to threats before they require quarantine and the morgue.

I need people and resources, Charles, to ensure that London — that Calcutta, in front of you right now — is not going to be New York, Shanghai, and the rest of the world. And I need it now.

If we don't defend ourselves, we'll be someone's puppets in a few years. It's been twelve years — I guess it was too much to hope that his research would die forever.

-R

Never Again

Authenticated as Reynolds, hash 4asyOk3mCi

———

From: Dir. C Stanley
To: F.O. Reynolds
Date: March 19, 0012 AV
Subject: Re: Time and tide

Eighteen hundred people, actually. Including the president's son. But he knows the cost; he was under Vinter's control just like us.

Permission granted. Pick your team.

———

From: F.O. Reynolds
To: white.brain@smco.org
Date: July 3, 0014 AV
Subject: Blood, toil, tears and sweat

Ladies and gentlemen,

I'm going to keep this short. I'm not one for long emails. The work that all of you have been selected to do isn't just of importance to one country or one group of people, but to humanity as a whole. Most of you understand first-hand why our work is so important, but even for those who weren't controlled by Vinter, everyone understands why it can't happen again. It may be funny to think of it as those silly trends and viral videos that 'memes' once described, but it will be much less funny when you see what happens when people listen to these ideas and then kill themselves.

See the video on the Jonestown event, over a century ago; that's an order to all of you.

We, the SMCO, are humanity's defense — the first, the last, and only. The SMCO was formed with one goal — to do whatever it takes so that memetic viruses will never again control us, that we will never again be enslaved.

Let me repeat myself: we will do whatever it takes. There is no price too high to pay, no research too wild to run, no technique we cannot be willing to perform.

With all of your work, keep in mind our motto:

Never Again

-R

Authenticated as Reynolds, hash 21bm4FnpO

———

From: Malcolm Vinter
To: F.O. Reynolds
Date: August 13, 0014 AV
Subject: Joining

Hello. I think you know who I am. You'll see that my sig's been verified as proof, and I'm sending this from a domain that I ordinarily never would.

Look, I heard what you were doing from— well, I heard it, and I want to join you. Why?

I know what my dad did, and honestly, fuck him.

I may have had privileges that others didn't, sometimes; I could think for myself for limited periods. But I don't think he really trusted me, or he would've let me be myself all the time, instead of just a few hours a day. He still played me like a puppet.

Me. His own fucking son, and he wouldn't let free for more than a few hours a day, or a few hours a week, sometimes.

I want to burn his legacy to the ground, tear it apart so no one could ever piece it together again. If I can't do that, I want to help in any way I can.

-Malcolm V.

signature cryptographically verified as malcolm@vinter.com

———

From: F.O. Reynolds
To: Malcolm Vinter
Date: August 13, 0014 AV
Subject: Re: Joining

Your request to join has been received. You will be evaluated based on the same standard as everyone else. Further communication will be sent if there is need for your skills.

-R

Never Again

Authenticated as Reynolds, hash bGh4L3P0zn

———

From: Dir. C Stanley
To: F.O. Reynolds
Date: March 19, 0017 AV
Subject: Re: A Person Who Never Made A Mistake

Reynolds, I'm a bit worried that your last report presented the two options as equals, when they're certainly not. Off the record, you understand that 'bleaching' isn't really an option, right? I'll allow it for research purposes — there might be some lighter form of it that might be useful to counteract some of the exposure effects to the low-lethality memetic viruses that are spreading through the population these days — but there is no way that, in its current form, you could even get close to using it. Hell, just think of what would happen if it fell into the wrong hands.

In fact, I hate to do this, but I'm going to have to tell you to kill it by the end of next month, and work on the sandboxing option solely. I know it's a bit slower, but we can't turn people into zombies, Reynolds, and that's what your reports look like, even if you can't see it yourself.

People without most of their higher order brain functions just aren't people, Reynolds.

Regards,
Director Charles Stanley
CINC-USSOCOM

———

From: F.O. Reynolds
To: Dir. C Stanley
Date: March 25, 0017 AV
Subject: Re: A Person Who Never Made A Mistake

Never Again, Charles. Remember the motto? Remember the point of this? Remember the President's son? Remember the other eighteen-hundred in Calcutta? The five hundred children in London, who were affected by that fucking nursery rhyme?

Remember Howard Fucking Vinter, Charles? Do you?

Do you remember which group squashed the Category III in Berlin before it spread to your wife?

-R

Never Again

Authenticated as Reynolds, hash gQq45mvXr0

———

From: F.O. Reynolds
To: white.brain@smco.org
Date: April 30, 0017 AV
Subject: More things in heaven and earth

All lines of research will continue.

-R

Never Again

Authenticated as Reynolds, hash n34mZkem89

———

From: Malcolm Vinter
To: F.O. Reynolds
Date: August 6, 0019 AV
Subject: What the [removed] are you doing?

What the hell happened with this new researcher, Reynolds? The [removed] are you doing? There's no oversight on this, and the only reason that I learned about it was because apparently she had contacted you about something, and you were out and the backup went to me. This is going to be a court case? Why don't any of the rest of us know about this?

...shit, Reynolds, are you the reason she's dead?

-Malcolm V.

signature cryptographically verified as malcolm@vtr.com

———

From: F.O. Reynolds
To: Malcolm Vinter
Date: August 6, 0019 AV
Subject: Re: What the [removed] are you doing?

The situation is under control, Malcolm. It is a regret that the researcher succumbed to the memetic agent.

-R

Never Again

Authenticated as Reynolds, hash mo3490mVxo

———

From: Malcolm Vinter
To: white.brain@smco.org
Date: June 6, 0020 AV
Subject: FO Reynolds is Unfit to Lead

Fellow researchers, scientists, friends:

FO Reynolds does not have the organization — or humanity's — best interests in mind. Attached, you'll find evidence of foul play on the part of FO Reynolds for the past five years. He has been committing multiple ethical violations through the course of his time with the SMCO and is linked to researcher White's death a year ago.

Again, please see the attachments, and judge for yourself. The senior staff will convene a meeting in half an hour to decide how to proceed.

-Malcolm V.

Attachment: emails.exe

———

And with that email, the mailing list that had been their shared pool of knowledge became their battleground, as the insurrection started and memetic weapons flew back and forth. Phone lines with the right agents became backdoors into consciousnesses, phished emails were deployed as trojan horses, and ostensible 'protection upgrades' by double-agents disabled personal defenses, allowing loose memetic viruses to incapacitate and destroy them.

The project was annihilated and most of its members dead or insane; the world's most brilliant minds reduced to catatonic states or worse. And those that remained would never come together again, would never trust anyone else but themselves. Who would, after what happened — especially when they saw what happened to Malcolm Vinter and F.O. Reynolds?

———

From: Malcolm Vinter
To: Malcolm Vinter
Date: August 4, 0020 AV
Subject: ad astra per aspera

I don't understand what — why I sent that email. Reynolds was wrong but I sent an email with, with—

I started a war. Between us. I doomed White Brain. Why did I? What was it?

Why do I hear my father's voice in my head?

.

What — what could he have — what did my dad do to me?

———

From: staff@smco.org
To: Dir. C Stanley
Date: August 25, 0020 AV
Subject: Incapacitation of F.O. Reynolds

Director Stanley,

F.O. Reynolds has been hit with a memetic agent. Universal lethality of four weeks. It has also overridden the First Officer's consciousness to that of a lower life form. He's being constrained for his own safety, currently, and does not comprehend language.

Null vector on rehabilitation — the only procedure we possibly perform is the 'bleach' research the White Brain project was conducting, Director.

It may save his life... but at an obvious cost.

Regards,
Dr. Krishna

A/N: This week's idol entry is also a writer's duel (or, perhaps, an intersection) between icaruslived and myself. This is a shared world that we both inhabited, briefly, a long time ago, and it was quite a pleasure to return to it. I hope you enjoy.